An internal combustion engine (ICE) for a motor vehicle generally includes an engine block which defines at least one cylinder accommodating a reciprocating piston coupled to rotate a crankshaft. The cylinder is closed by a cylinder head that cooperates with the reciprocating piston to define a combustion chamber. A fuel and air mixture is cyclically injected into the combustion chamber and ignited, thereby generating hot expanding exhaust gasses that cause the reciprocating movements of the piston. The fuel is injected into each cylinder by a respective fuel injector. The fuel is provided at high pressure to each fuel injector from a fuel rail in fluid communication with a high pressure fuel pump that increase the pressure of the fuel received from a fuel source.
Generally speaking, a lubrication system is provided in internal combustion engines, the lubrication system including Piston Cooling Jets or PCJs used to generate jets of oil onto the underside of the pistons. The oil may be used to absorb heat from the pistons and to lubricate the cylinders of the engine.
An oil circuit is provided for the PCJs, the oil circuit including an oil pump, the pump being generally driven by the crankshaft and drawing oil from an oil sump, an oil cooler and oil filter, the oil being circulated in a main oil gallery. In some applications, a dedicated PCJ oil gallery leading to the Piston Cooling Jets is provided and is separated from the main oil gallery by a solenoid valve, managed by an Electronic Control Unit (ECU) of the engine.
The use of a solenoid valve however causes several problems. First, the assembly of the solenoid valve requires a wiring harness in order to connect the valve to the ECU, contributing to the complexity of the wiring of the overall engine system. Furthermore, the use of the solenoid valve controlled by the ECU requires dedicated software to be run by ECU, contributing to the computational load of the ECU. These facts, in addition to the cost of the solenoid valve itself, increase the costs of the engine system.